Thank your for this video. Im Spanish and my wife is Estonian. We live in Spain and our two children are bilingual. Yet I understand the basics and I can more or less speak some Estonian just by being surrounded of 3 estonian speakers at home, I have to say it’s not an easy enterprise to learn Estonian language properly, a strong motivation is needed to learn such a complex language spoken by so few… I have started and given up more times than I can possibly remember (14 gazes is just an insane hell!!!). Keep on with it 💪🏼. Nägemist 🇪🇪
Haha, yeah it's not easy at all. It's so great that your children are growing up bilingual 🤩 Spanish also is a beautiful language. I started learning it recently. Much easier than Estonian I have to say, especially knowing French :)
With "jäääär" you actually have two long sounds right after one another. You stop with one "ää" sound and immediately without pause start another. Inflection makes them separate.
I am from Estonia so I don't even think about the language as deeply as you do :) A lot of new concepts in your video that I never have thought of. I just know how how the wrong way of saying something is so I avoid it. I don't envy someone who is new to learning estonian after watching your video :D By the way as a little correction: I eat strawberries = ma söön maasikaid *. "Ma söön maasikat = I eat a strawberry"
The same with me in Russian :D I know how to say/write things but will never be able to explain to a foreigner why it's this way without preparation. Thank you for the correction! But what do you normally say ("strawberries" or "strawberry") in this context?
@@HappyLifeAbroad It's basically the same way you say it in english. I usually say "Ma söön maasikaid" because I almost always eat more than 1 strawberry in a session. But "Ma söön maasikat" is technically correct to say also unless you stuff more than one strawberry in your mouth at the same time :)
Your ä was a bit too close to a. As an Estonian it is always quite interesting to see with what unique letters a foreigner struggles the most. For some it is õ, for some ä, for some ö, for some ü. It's probably because in Russian language -a and especially -ja are quite close to both a and ä in Estonian language. Also probably because of Russian, you said -d endings a bit too soft, while the same letter inside a word was quite good. Anyways keep up the good work and don't worry if at start you struggle with some things..
Interesting video! Learned a lot. My family and I are interested in living in Estonia. I’ve heard great things about the country. Feeling a little intimidated learning such a different language. I took French in school, so definitely more familiar with romantic languages. But I am excited to start learning!!!
Hey, i really want to learn estonian because on of my friends is estonian. Can you give me some tipps how to learn it and it really would help if you could tell me how i should even start (books, videos, apps, etc.).
Add dialects and people go crazy :) Not saying that other languages do not have dialects. But there are dialects i can not understand first at all. Probably need few weeks with speaker and then i would probably understand them.
04:28 Yes long and extra long vocals mind that word mining get other . Like "tooma" extra long = bring but "tooma " long mining Toomase oma = belong to Toomas ( Toomas is men name in Estonia ).
No worries, the Estonians themselves make mistakes all the time :D. But for me Russian has actually been extremely difficult to learn (I understand but can't speak) because there are also those stem changes but very different compared to ours. :D What I wanted to say: If you try to speak Estonian you are allowed to make mistakes, Estonians love their language spoken by friendly foreigners :)
Estonian belongs to the Baltic-Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages, and it is most closely related to Finnish, Votic, Livonian, Ingrian, Karelian, and Veps.
if you are learning Estonian, the ability to spell WITH SYLLABLE will help you a lot. This is how our children learn to read. Do it melodically, that is, by singing. words like JÄÄ-ÄÄR have 2 syllables. Sing them together, so that the syllables are heard separately. But first, learn to pronounce the new sounds Ä,Ö,Ü,Õ accurately (the last of them is on Russian too). This is necessary, because pronouncing Ä as A creates 2 completely new words. JAA-AAR means YES-AAR* AAR - The aar is a non-systematic unit of area based on the metric system. 1 year = 100 m².
I was at a medical clinic here in the USA. I heard a man speaking a foreign language. It sounded a little like Finnish, but maybe a little different. So I asked the man : What language are you speaking, is it Estonian? He was floored. Nobody I think guessed his language like I did. Where I live there are people from all over the world now. Just about. So I hear just about everything.
That is very cool, good job! I sometimes watch those videos on youtube where you have to guess the language. I find them very entertaining :) And it's also a nice skill to have.
Wow! Thats a first! I am estonian and went to a vacation in Mexico. And random merchant there asked if i am speaking russian... i was floored, the two languages sound like worlds appart, also russian language is so recognizable.
I've had one American and one Brit guess my nationality straight from accent my English has. One had visited Estonia once as a tourist (Brit, apparently they have loads of their own accents and really good ear for those), another had Estonian girlfriend in US and recognized my accent as identical to his gf' parents..
That is a great video about a really interesting language. We were in Estonia in 2018 and I loved hearing the language,although apart from a few very simple everyday expressions, I understood nothing. The whole concept of agglutinative languages is so alien to most English speakers and the vocabulary generally so different, that we will always struggle with them, quite apart from the issues with word order. Old English had a four case system similar to present day German, but the cases were dropped over the years, and happily, Dutch (the language I am learning) also jettisoned its case system about 80 years ago. We do have a few inflections (mainly in personal pronouns and the possessive case), but that is it ! I wish you the very best of luck in studying Estonian - I am sure you will soon be fluent !
My son is bilingual speaker (Russian from mother's side of family). TBH before I started correcting his Estonian I never realized how many irregularities it has - which need to be simply memorized. Also he has quite some trouble with 'getting hang of the cases' , mutating word stems, choosing correct ma/da-endings (seems to trouble Slavs learning Estonian in general) and seems like some preposition-logic is different in Russian.
Yes, when you start speaking multiple languages (especially grammatically complex ones) or try to explain something to a foreigner, you start realizing the complexity of your own language. I think this is cool! Cause this provides a greater appreciation for your mother tongue. Personally, Estonian keeps surprising me all the time. But some things I find very logical :)
I think the hardest part of learning the Estonian language is not because of the language itself. It is because many students learn the language on the basis of not their native language, maybe except the native English speakers. So they learn Estonian as the 3rd language by using their 2nd language (English). This is a different case with the Russian speakers when they learn Estonian because many Estonian language courses also offer to learn Estonian on the basis of the Russian language. I learnt French only for 3 months because I find it easier to learn from teachers who speak the same native language as you. Estonian is supposed to be easier than French for me because it is a phonetic and similar style of borrowed vocabularies, just like my native language. But anyway for almost a year, my progress is too slow compare to when I learnt French.
I see what you mean but at the same time the people from my learning group were all quite proficient in English (besides some pure Russian speakers who were unfortunately mixed with us). For my part, I don't have any problem learning another language through English. I even prefer (and am currently taking) courses English -> Estonian rather than Russian -> Estonian.
Quite a few errors have already been pointed out so I'm not going to repeat them, but yeah, Estonian is hard to even native speakers :P Often I have to check myself with a dictionary and often I'm not even sure what kind of ending should be used in a certain case. As for comparison between Russian and Estonian, when I learned Russian there were almost no words that were similar. Maybe some words that both languages have taken from English, but none of it was of help so I'm not sure how you made that connection. That especially if 1/3 of the vocabulary is of Germanic origin, 1/2 Uralic and Russian being mixed among the others like Finnish, Baltic, synthetic. I belive we've taken more words from the Baltic languages than from Russian. Oh and lastly, the word order isn't completely free. Usually when you're talking about multiple things and you're more specific about one thing, then the specification should come after that word or the concept of that thing you're talking about. Also at some point if there is absolutely no word order it gets messy and it gets hard to understand.
Thank you for the explanation about the word order. The words that are the same in Russian and Estonian are usually not the most common words that beginners learn. Maybe that is why you haven't instantly made a connection. But I actually meant that compared to other languages (excluding Germanic and Romance groups), knowing Russian is helpful.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_vocabulary#/media/File:Estonian_vocabulary.png Finnish is part of Finno-Uralic (just like Estonian) Given piechart only shows the word base that makes up the core of the language, loanwords included. There are as many Russian loans, as there are Baltic loans - both make notable sectors. I also point out that it excludes what we call foreign words (võõrsõna). We quite easily sense those as foreign, sometimes to not even really understand those. Noone questions about, are loanwords part of the language - in contrast to foreign words. Estonians usually recognize and sense Romance loans as foreign words et.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B5%C3%B5rs%C3%B5na, and quite easily feel a need for "lexicon for foreign words": www.eki.ee/dict/vsl/index.cgi?Q=proton%20pseudos -- at times desperately so. Also Estonian isn't the only language that has loaning in words - as so have done Slavic and Germanic languages. Several of those loans line up and thus are shared between all of those languages. It seems especially true with Romance loan words. Then there are plenty of those, that seem or sound similar, will it be mere coincidence. Especially those, that are derived from sounds, which Estonian has a lot of. Eg: "tiksuma" = "to tick"; "tikk-takk" = "tick-tock"; etc (not best examples, but should give an idea) From my own experience with the Russian language at school time, I agree with you. I did not felt much help from those loans. Estonians themselves do have a notable benefit towards Germanic vocabulary tho. Sadly vocabulary isn't grammar - that's mutual, I gather. I guess that Estonians are more accustomed towards other languages with differing grammar as well. Note on word order is a great point out: "Estonian is most often considered an SVO language. However, in main clauses, SVX and XVS are equally frequent, which indicates that Estonian has the V2... ": www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Word-Order-of-Estonian%3A-Implications-to-Ehala/a7efd950c8b8031330c8748d956285ebea757106 While learning the language, I recommend sticking with SVO (or however, the teacher instructs). Initially at least.
What do you mean, I did not contest you? At least I did not mean to. How would I even know? I sit on an opposite end of the table: I'm blind about how useful any other languages are towards mine own, which is Estonian. There has to be a reason why Estonian is listed amongst the hardest languages (Latin script based) to acquire for English speakers (A Germanic language as well). I'm actually glad to hear, that someone feels advantaged towards mine language :-D As far as vocabulary goes, Russian certainly seem to have much more to do with the Estonian than Romance languages: "Tudengid presenteerisid innovatiivseid ideid infrastruktuuri moderniseerimiseks" is a bit different from: "Üliõpilased esitlesid leidlike mõtteid taristu uutmiseks" or "Õppurid näitasid uudseid lahendusi taristu kaasajastamiseks" Words in the first example are all enlisted safely in: www.eki.ee/dict/vsl/index.cgi?Q=infrastruktuur&F=M&C06=en, which mean they all are considered (and perceived) as foreign-words. We call those foreign-words for a reason. It has to do with intelligibility and fluency. The reason why educators advise against over usage of those, at least when I was in school. If I remember correctly: 3 per sentence max; 10 per paragraph max; meaning should be acquirable from context (often via synonym). There are exceptions, eg: buss, auto, tramm, troll, etc. Nobody in the right mind would contest about the following loanword to be part of the contemporary Estonian language: eki.ee/dict/ety/index.cgi?Q=v%C3%B5lu This, in turn, shows how deep-rooted those loanwords are into contemporary Estonian, differing from foreign words. In following article you can find more about Estonian loan words (in Estonian): web.archive.org/web/20070721113833/www.fillu.edu.ee/sisu.php?teema=2&id=30 About estonian language in general: estinst.ee/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/589_Estonian_Language_2015_WEB.pdf provided by estinst.ee/en/
as native estonian speaker, who has learned some... 6 i guess? depends. foreign languages (1 russian 2 english 3 lithuanian 4 german 5 greek 6 hebrew 7 polish 8 spanish 6,5 latin; scratch greek and hebrew, i barely remember letters now, anyways) i can only testify: it is true that only 3 first foreign languages are difficult to learn. from 4th it is much easier. there forms kinda self (like bookself) or grid in your brain, first 3 are like building it, and then you just fill it. there is some scientific name for that grid, don't remember. generative grammar? and it does not depend, are they same family or not. so, advise: learn some 3 easier languages first, and then tackle estonian. of slavic languages russian is not easiest. hebrew has tons of rules but once you get them, you just ride on them (i never said i got there...) german is next to estonian in difficulty. maybe, if your native language is english, try: latin or italian, spanish, greek or, say, czech. or, if brave, german. considering, where your travels take you. and when you put in all this hard work and speak nearly perfect estonian - estonians will still correct you or worse, try to speak english. not bc we're assholes (that might be 1 factor), but this culture classification on scale textual -- contextual. i think most latin, esp brazilian culture is extreme contextual - when speaking, more info is in context, how you speak, not what you say. german and estonian culture is extreme textual - what you say exactly is important, poor grammar might be verrry confusing, so let's better speak english, so to say. :)
One correction: the word "jäääär" is grammatically erraneous. The only correct way to write constructs like that, is "jää-äär". Where there is 3 or more of the same vowel, there the hyphes always is used. There are some tongue-twister lists online with a bunch of supposed estonian words like "jäääär" and "kuuuurija" are shown as examples of weidness in estonian language, but the fact is it' incorrect. When you speak the word "jää-äär", it sounds like a very small hick-up in the middle of the word, basically same as "jää'äär" would be.
@@HappyLifeAbroad indeed, jää-äär is pronounced as a two-syllable word. if you make it into a one-syllable word with just one very long 'ää' (as you did in this video) it will sound like the word 'jäär' to the estonian ear, meaning a ram (as in, the animal). otherwise i thought your pronounciation was very good and the video contained a lot of information without any unnecessary frou-frou
Don't worry! Regardless of what I already know, I still don't really speak it... I understand some, especially written text, but have this psychological barrier that prevents me from practicing speaking :(
ˇjust as a fyi, it is also very similar to several languages spoken in russian federation, like for example Mari. I had a Mari roommate and he was talking shit about me to his brother and I could understand him well enough to go get some beers and sit his ass down and tell him im not that asshole he thinks i am.
@@HappyLifeAbroad, I recognise many German words in Estonian, but the grammar is completely different ... and hard for someone like me who only knew German and Roman languages before.
I like watching videos where someone who is not estonian tries to pronounce words. But you pronounced the word "buss" as "püss" "Buss" means bus, but "püss" means gun.
The principle of the Estonian case system is easy to comprehend for a native Finnish speaker familiar to the southwestern dialects of finnish in which the word endings are shortened like in estonian if compared with standard written finnish. (Maybe due to some ancient migration from Estonia to southwesterbn finland or something like that,) So for example the word ranta (beach) is in Finnish: ranta - rannat, rannan - rantojen, rantaa - rantoja. So it is easy to learn just how many letters you drop from the ending of the finnish language word. Or if not directly then the estonian word will at least resemble some finnish dialect form. But because written or officially spoken finnish was designed quite conservative in the 19th century during the national awakening, the informal spoken finnish uses very much the shorter forms with letters dropped of from the end of the words. So for example in estonian I = ma, you = sa while in written standard finnish (and some dialects) I = minä and you = sinä but in informal spoken finnish there may be I =mä, you = sä.
i read your video with very interest. I like Estonia and i want to come back in next spring (i like your video "rent"). You are my estonian guide!!! But, now, where do you live? In Estonia or Finland. And, please, tell me a little answer. How is in summer with mosquitoes in Estonia? Many years ago i was in june in Finalnd, near Rovaniemi. Was terrible and people walked with protection anti mosquitoes. Thanks for your answer
I have noticed how basically every foreigner that learns estonian gets the pitch wrong with many words that contain L's and M's. Sadly for you, what makes it even harder to learn this is that, the difference in pitch is not represented in written language. You already have to struggle with learning to pronounce certain vowels. Anyway, i figured i could borrow something from spanish language to give you a example you could lean on. Namely its letters n/ñ. ñ is with much higher pitch than regular n. Now imagine the same system in estonian. In adition to just N, the same rule also applies to letter L! Now, i know in reality, the spanish ñ is pronounced more as ni or nj but, pay no attention to that and listen to the pitch of an ñ compared to normal n! Couple of words for demonstration, imagine letter L also cointains tilde as i cant write it as it does not exist: Palk (no tilde normal L) - wage Paññ - frying pan Palk (L with tilde) - log Vaññ - bath Palju (tilde) - many Kalju (tilde) - cliff Anyway, there are many words going around the same way but i cant recall all of them on the top of my head. I hope you atleast understood what i was trying to explain here. Getting the pitch wrong in those words is a dead giveaway that you are not a native speaker.
This was interesting. Are you in fact describing palatalisation here? Would you say the "tt" in the male name Ott also has this type of pronunciation? I've watched a fair bit of world rally championships, and I've noticed the pronunciation of Ott Tänak's name has something going on that I, as a Finn, would not have been able to get from the spelling alone. I'm speculating that the "tt" is palatalised, which is not a thing in Finnish (at least not in my dialect) so I struggle to do it. I never knew about palatalisation in Estonian before, but that would explain one of those things that give Estonian its unique sound compared to Finnish. I have also heard Estonians joke about the Finnish pronunciation of 's', and I'm wondering if that is referring to the inability of Finns to pronounce the palatalised 's' in Estonian. :)
@@ihanba Think you are on to something here. That being said, im not an expert to explain it in great detail. The way i understand Finnish though, lets just say we do things very differently when it comes to double consonants! In estonian double t's or k's are considered to be very strong and slightly different in pitch compared to single t's or k's. Tongue position is slightly different. Finns however pronounce their double consonants often as we do single consonants.
Hola que tal?; Los mejores y más cordiales Saludos desde puente piedra, lima, Perú, ojalá que puedan venir en algún momento a mi país y que disfruten mucho de todo por aquí, con la familia y los amigos, felicidades por sus vídeos...
Actually, there is a sentence order structure. I sometimes tend to end my sentences with verbs. So during high school and the end of middle school, we had to write a lot of essays and my teacher basically marked me down in almost every other sentence for incorrect sentence structure. A similar thing happened when I was writing my bachelor's and master's thesis. It wasn't as bad, but still. Even though the reader could understand what I wrote.
Thank you, very interesting video for me as an Estonian to watch🥰. Jäääär is like Jää = Ice + edge = äär . As previously mentioned, honey cake = mee+kook and wooden table = puu+laud . It's true that, as an Estonian, I don't really think about how or from what words are inflected or what the endings are. You explained everything very nicely. I myself could not explain Estonian grammar to a foreigner, to be honest. 😅
Thanks for the informative video. I'm Estonian and I remembered the funny saying that you have to try to say fast:"Eminemi esimene esinemine". :D And a saying that is the same from the beginning to the end and the other way:"aias sadas saia"
14:27 in Russian not have word "Kas". That mind order is differnd of words when asking. " on" is never in Estonian language last word and conjuction word have not never first word of sentens.
funny fact is we have two languages we can speak first is clean estonia and other is wõro language if youd travel to võru city there people speak it differently like something sannas om lämmi
Thanks for the great video. I just came back from a trip to Tallinn, and so much of what you said makes total sense in hindsight. I'm thinking about learning Estonian as a native English speaker (USA). I studied French in high school, Russian at the university level, and German via a language app for my phone. But Estonian seems particularly intimidating. So thanks for the positive vibes!!!
Actually, "jäääär" is not a correct way to write this word. Correct way to write it is "jää-äär". If combining of words gives you more than two same letters in sequence, a hyphen is used to separate them. Never use three or more same letters in a row without it. For example "uusaasta öö", but "vana-aasta õhtu".
Actually both are correct. The hyphen between three same letters or more is to make reading it easier. Just like when there are many words written together then you're also allowed to separate them with a hyphen.
As a Estonian I can confirm that nobody in their daily life actually uses the word jäääär (actually right way to write it would be jää-äär). It's basically made up word, which means "ice edge". Wtf even is ice edge? 🤔😀 So feel free to forget this word. Otherwise very nice video. ❤️
Thank your for this video. Im Spanish and my wife is Estonian. We live in Spain and our two children are bilingual. Yet I understand the basics and I can more or less speak some Estonian just by being surrounded of 3 estonian speakers at home, I have to say it’s not an easy enterprise to learn Estonian language properly, a strong motivation is needed to learn such a complex language spoken by so few… I have started and given up more times than I can possibly remember (14 gazes is just an insane hell!!!). Keep on with it 💪🏼. Nägemist 🇪🇪
Haha, yeah it's not easy at all. It's so great that your children are growing up bilingual 🤩 Spanish also is a beautiful language. I started learning it recently. Much easier than Estonian I have to say, especially knowing French :)
Where you met your wife ?
With "jäääär" you actually have two long sounds right after one another. You stop with one "ää" sound and immediately without pause start another. Inflection makes them separate.
I am from Estonia so I don't even think about the language as deeply as you do :) A lot of new concepts in your video that I never have thought of. I just know how how the wrong way of saying something is so I avoid it. I don't envy someone who is new to learning estonian after watching your video :D By the way as a little correction: I eat strawberries = ma söön maasikaid *. "Ma söön maasikat = I eat a strawberry"
The same with me in Russian :D I know how to say/write things but will never be able to explain to a foreigner why it's this way without preparation.
Thank you for the correction! But what do you normally say ("strawberries" or "strawberry") in this context?
@@HappyLifeAbroad It's basically the same way you say it in english. I usually say "Ma söön maasikaid" because I almost always eat more than 1 strawberry in a session. But "Ma söön maasikat" is technically correct to say also unless you stuff more than one strawberry in your mouth at the same time :)
@@Rookie11 Haha, okay :D Thanks!
Fascinating subject. Your intelligence and natural charm come through in your clear presentation of a complex subject. Thank you!
Your ä was a bit too close to a. As an Estonian it is always quite interesting to see with what unique letters a foreigner struggles the most. For some it is õ, for some ä, for some ö, for some ü. It's probably because in Russian language -a and especially -ja are quite close to both a and ä in Estonian language. Also probably because of Russian, you said -d endings a bit too soft, while the same letter inside a word was quite good. Anyways keep up the good work and don't worry if at start you struggle with some things..
And then you take a trip to the western islands and stumble upon "ø" (which is between ö and õ).
I struggle most with the õ.
Thank you! Such a useful comment but somehow I saw it just now. Thanks again for information.
@@forgottenforgetfulness6643 Me too!
Õ is the bane of my existence, I can NEVER pronounce it correctly no matter how hard I try.
Interesting video! Learned a lot. My family and I are interested in living in Estonia. I’ve heard great things about the country. Feeling a little intimidated learning such a different language. I took French in school, so definitely more familiar with romantic languages. But I am excited to start learning!!!
Haha, I am still intimidated even after a year. But I wish you success in your learning journey!
Great. More videos related to estonian grammar pls!
Thank you! I'll try :)
thanks for you to share your language
Estonian is not my language :) I'm just learning it
Suur aitäh sinule :)
Palun :)
Hey, i really want to learn estonian because on of my friends is estonian.
Can you give me some tipps how to learn it and it really would help if you could tell me how i should even start (books, videos, apps, etc.).
If you are outside of Estonia, www.keeleklikk.ee is the best place to start. It's a free resource. Good luck!
Sa räägid Eesti keelt väga hästi! meaning=You are speaking Estonian very good!👍
are u a native russian living in estonia?
Add dialects and people go crazy :)
Not saying that other languages do not have dialects.
But there are dialects i can not understand first at all. Probably need few weeks with speaker and then i would probably understand them.
Haha, let's not scare new learners :D
Tere! Yes Estonian language is difficult and we know it. That´s why we respect people who learn it or it least try.
04:28 Yes long and extra long vocals mind that word mining get other . Like "tooma" extra long = bring but "tooma " long mining Toomase oma = belong to Toomas ( Toomas is men name in Estonia ).
Me, an Estonian, who was in the IB program and failed my Estonian exam 😎
Great video . I think skills are of You at estonian language B2A and between B2B ,
Mu Emakeel
Спустя 3 года, надеюсь вы научились выговорить ä,ö и ü😊
Sa räägid eesti keelt?
No worries, the Estonians themselves make mistakes all the time :D. But for me Russian has actually been extremely difficult to learn (I understand but can't speak) because there are also those stem changes but very different compared to ours. :D What I wanted to say: If you try to speak Estonian you are allowed to make mistakes, Estonians love their language spoken by friendly foreigners :)
language is not not hard as all, very soft speaking.
what is hard is cases in language...14
Im from Estonia 🇪🇪 i can speak it perfectly
Tere ma olen Margzz__ ja ma oskan eesti keelt kuna ma sündisin seal
Sa küsid enda käest kuna sa seal sündisid?
Päris hull seis. 🤷♂️
it has more similarities with turkic hungarian languages structures
Estonian belongs to the Baltic-Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages, and it is most closely related to Finnish, Votic, Livonian, Ingrian, Karelian, and Veps.
Noh tere
Estonia lingvej
tere tere vana kere
if you are learning Estonian, the ability to spell WITH SYLLABLE will help you a lot. This is how our children learn to read. Do it melodically, that is, by singing.
words like JÄÄ-ÄÄR have 2 syllables. Sing them together, so that the syllables are heard separately.
But first, learn to pronounce the new sounds Ä,Ö,Ü,Õ accurately (the last of them is on Russian too). This is necessary, because pronouncing Ä as A creates 2 completely new words.
JAA-AAR means YES-AAR*
AAR - The aar is a non-systematic unit of area based on the metric system. 1 year = 100 m².
Very interesting! Thank you
I was at a medical clinic here in the USA. I heard a man speaking a foreign language. It sounded a little like Finnish, but maybe a little different. So I asked the man : What language are you speaking, is it Estonian? He was floored. Nobody I think guessed his language like I did. Where I live there are people from all over the world now. Just about. So I hear just about everything.
That is very cool, good job! I sometimes watch those videos on youtube where you have to guess the language. I find them very entertaining :) And it's also a nice skill to have.
Wow! Thats a first! I am estonian and went to a vacation in Mexico. And random merchant there asked if i am speaking russian... i was floored, the two languages sound like worlds appart, also russian language is so recognizable.
I've had one American and one Brit guess my nationality straight from accent my English has. One had visited Estonia once as a tourist (Brit, apparently they have loads of their own accents and really good ear for those), another had Estonian girlfriend in US and recognized my accent as identical to his gf' parents..
That is a great video about a really interesting language. We were in Estonia in 2018 and I loved hearing the language,although apart from a few very simple everyday expressions, I understood nothing. The whole concept of agglutinative languages is so alien to most English speakers and the vocabulary generally so different, that we will always struggle with them, quite apart from the issues with word order. Old English had a four case system similar to present day German, but the cases were dropped over the years, and happily, Dutch (the language I am learning) also jettisoned its case system about 80 years ago. We do have a few inflections (mainly in personal pronouns and the possessive case), but that is it ! I wish you the very best of luck in studying Estonian - I am sure you will soon be fluent !
Thank you so much!!!
I also love hearing Estonian! And I wish you luck with Dutch too! It is much more useful in general, haha :D
You make it sound difficult eventhough i am Estonian😄😄
Haha, imaging how it is for foreigners! 😣😄
My son is bilingual speaker (Russian from mother's side of family). TBH before I started correcting his Estonian I never realized how many irregularities it has - which need to be simply memorized. Also he has quite some trouble with 'getting hang of the cases' , mutating word stems, choosing correct ma/da-endings (seems to trouble Slavs learning Estonian in general) and seems like some preposition-logic is different in Russian.
Yes, when you start speaking multiple languages (especially grammatically complex ones) or try to explain something to a foreigner, you start realizing the complexity of your own language.
I think this is cool! Cause this provides a greater appreciation for your mother tongue.
Personally, Estonian keeps surprising me all the time. But some things I find very logical :)
Respect!
Thank you so much!
I think the hardest part of learning the Estonian language is not because of the language itself. It is because many students learn the language on the basis of not their native language, maybe except the native English speakers. So they learn Estonian as the 3rd language by using their 2nd language (English). This is a different case with the Russian speakers when they learn Estonian because many Estonian language courses also offer to learn Estonian on the basis of the Russian language. I learnt French only for 3 months because I find it easier to learn from teachers who speak the same native language as you. Estonian is supposed to be easier than French for me because it is a phonetic and similar style of borrowed vocabularies, just like my native language. But anyway for almost a year, my progress is too slow compare to when I learnt French.
I see what you mean but at the same time the people from my learning group were all quite proficient in English (besides some pure Russian speakers who were unfortunately mixed with us). For my part, I don't have any problem learning another language through English. I even prefer (and am currently taking) courses English -> Estonian rather than Russian -> Estonian.
@@HappyLifeAbroad I learned ancient Greek through Russian in 1970ties :)
Sometimes you have no other choice.
Quite a few errors have already been pointed out so I'm not going to repeat them, but yeah, Estonian is hard to even native speakers :P Often I have to check myself with a dictionary and often I'm not even sure what kind of ending should be used in a certain case. As for comparison between Russian and Estonian, when I learned Russian there were almost no words that were similar. Maybe some words that both languages have taken from English, but none of it was of help so I'm not sure how you made that connection. That especially if 1/3 of the vocabulary is of Germanic origin, 1/2 Uralic and Russian being mixed among the others like Finnish, Baltic, synthetic. I belive we've taken more words from the Baltic languages than from Russian.
Oh and lastly, the word order isn't completely free. Usually when you're talking about multiple things and you're more specific about one thing, then the specification should come after that word or the concept of that thing you're talking about. Also at some point if there is absolutely no word order it gets messy and it gets hard to understand.
Thank you for the explanation about the word order.
The words that are the same in Russian and Estonian are usually not the most common words that beginners learn. Maybe that is why you haven't instantly made a connection. But I actually meant that compared to other languages (excluding Germanic and Romance groups), knowing Russian is helpful.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_vocabulary#/media/File:Estonian_vocabulary.png Finnish is part of Finno-Uralic (just like Estonian)
Given piechart only shows the word base that makes up the core of the language, loanwords included. There are as many Russian loans, as there are Baltic loans - both make notable sectors. I also point out that it excludes what we call foreign words (võõrsõna). We quite easily sense those as foreign, sometimes to not even really understand those. Noone questions about, are loanwords part of the language - in contrast to foreign words.
Estonians usually recognize and sense Romance loans as foreign words et.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B5%C3%B5rs%C3%B5na, and quite easily feel a need for "lexicon for foreign words": www.eki.ee/dict/vsl/index.cgi?Q=proton%20pseudos -- at times desperately so.
Also Estonian isn't the only language that has loaning in words - as so have done Slavic and Germanic languages. Several of those loans line up and thus are shared between all of those languages. It seems especially true with Romance loan words.
Then there are plenty of those, that seem or sound similar, will it be mere coincidence. Especially those, that are derived from sounds, which Estonian has a lot of. Eg: "tiksuma" = "to tick"; "tikk-takk" = "tick-tock"; etc (not best examples, but should give an idea)
From my own experience with the Russian language at school time, I agree with you. I did not felt much help from those loans.
Estonians themselves do have a notable benefit towards Germanic vocabulary tho. Sadly vocabulary isn't grammar - that's mutual, I gather. I guess that Estonians are more accustomed towards other languages with differing grammar as well.
Note on word order is a great point out:
"Estonian is most often considered an SVO language. However, in main clauses, SVX and XVS are equally frequent, which indicates that Estonian has the V2... ": www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Word-Order-of-Estonian%3A-Implications-to-Ehala/a7efd950c8b8031330c8748d956285ebea757106
While learning the language, I recommend sticking with SVO (or however, the teacher instructs). Initially at least.
@@KohaAlbert So maybe I am the only one who feels like Russian is helpful, haha :D
What do you mean, I did not contest you? At least I did not mean to.
How would I even know? I sit on an opposite end of the table: I'm blind about how useful any other languages are towards mine own, which is Estonian.
There has to be a reason why Estonian is listed amongst the hardest languages (Latin script based) to acquire for English speakers (A Germanic language as well).
I'm actually glad to hear, that someone feels advantaged towards mine language :-D
As far as vocabulary goes, Russian certainly seem to have much more to do with the Estonian than Romance languages:
"Tudengid presenteerisid innovatiivseid ideid infrastruktuuri moderniseerimiseks"
is a bit different from:
"Üliõpilased esitlesid leidlike mõtteid taristu uutmiseks"
or
"Õppurid näitasid uudseid lahendusi taristu kaasajastamiseks"
Words in the first example are all enlisted safely in: www.eki.ee/dict/vsl/index.cgi?Q=infrastruktuur&F=M&C06=en, which mean they all are considered (and perceived) as foreign-words.
We call those foreign-words for a reason. It has to do with intelligibility and fluency. The reason why educators advise against over usage of those, at least when I was in school.
If I remember correctly: 3 per sentence max; 10 per paragraph max; meaning should be acquirable from context (often via synonym). There are exceptions, eg: buss, auto, tramm, troll, etc.
Nobody in the right mind would contest about the following loanword to be part of the contemporary Estonian language: eki.ee/dict/ety/index.cgi?Q=v%C3%B5lu This, in turn, shows how deep-rooted those loanwords are into contemporary Estonian, differing from foreign words.
In following article you can find more about Estonian loan words (in Estonian): web.archive.org/web/20070721113833/www.fillu.edu.ee/sisu.php?teema=2&id=30
About estonian language in general: estinst.ee/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/589_Estonian_Language_2015_WEB.pdf provided by estinst.ee/en/
as native estonian speaker, who has learned some... 6 i guess? depends. foreign languages (1 russian 2 english 3 lithuanian 4 german 5 greek 6 hebrew 7 polish 8 spanish 6,5 latin; scratch greek and hebrew, i barely remember letters now, anyways) i can only testify: it is true that only 3 first foreign languages are difficult to learn. from 4th it is much easier. there forms kinda self (like bookself) or grid in your brain, first 3 are like building it, and then you just fill it. there is some scientific name for that grid, don't remember. generative grammar? and it does not depend, are they same family or not. so, advise: learn some 3 easier languages first, and then tackle estonian. of slavic languages russian is not easiest. hebrew has tons of rules but once you get them, you just ride on them (i never said i got there...) german is next to estonian in difficulty. maybe, if your native language is english, try: latin or italian, spanish, greek or, say, czech. or, if brave, german. considering, where your travels take you.
and when you put in all this hard work and speak nearly perfect estonian - estonians will still correct you or worse, try to speak english. not bc we're assholes (that might be 1 factor), but this culture classification on scale textual -- contextual. i think most latin, esp brazilian culture is extreme contextual - when speaking, more info is in context, how you speak, not what you say. german and estonian culture is extreme textual - what you say exactly is important, poor grammar might be verrry confusing, so let's better speak english, so to say. :)
kass is a cat and buss is a bus. as you sai is by tiblas
Väga hea ülevaade eesti keelest. Amazing.
Aitäh :)
One correction: the word "jäääär" is grammatically erraneous. The only correct way to write constructs like that, is "jää-äär". Where there is 3 or more of the same vowel, there the hyphes always is used. There are some tongue-twister lists online with a bunch of supposed estonian words like "jäääär" and "kuuuurija" are shown as examples of weidness in estonian language, but the fact is it' incorrect. When you speak the word "jää-äär", it sounds like a very small hick-up in the middle of the word, basically same as "jää'äär" would be.
Haha, trying to imitate hick-up is a very interesting advice :)
@@HappyLifeAbroad indeed, jää-äär is pronounced as a two-syllable word. if you make it into a one-syllable word with just one very long 'ää' (as you did in this video) it will sound like the word 'jäär' to the estonian ear, meaning a ram (as in, the animal). otherwise i thought your pronounciation was very good and the video contained a lot of information without any unnecessary frou-frou
According to the most recent grammatical rules jäääär is correct.
I'm glad that i'm native Estonian speaker. I wouldn't want to learn it as foreign language :D
Great. I'm way behind in my learning Estonian 😬
Don't worry! Regardless of what I already know, I still don't really speak it... I understand some, especially written text, but have this psychological barrier that prevents me from practicing speaking :(
Oh my.. What a language!
Language is Finnic, so perhaps also interesting:
www.languagesoftheworld.info/russia-ukraine-and-the-caucasus/finnic-traits-in-russian.html
Estonian is hard as fuck , even for myself as an actual estonian. Probably the hardest language to learn using latin alphabet
ˇjust as a fyi, it is also very similar to several languages spoken in russian federation, like for example Mari. I had a Mari roommate and he was talking shit about me to his brother and I could understand him well enough to go get some beers and sit his ass down and tell him im not that asshole he thinks i am.
Sounds very challenging!
Haha it is :D
As a native German speaker learning Estonian I completely agree with your findings.
Good to hear :) So do you feel that you have an advantage in Estonian being a German speaker?
@@HappyLifeAbroad, I recognise many German words in Estonian, but the grammar is completely different ... and hard for someone like me who only knew German and Roman languages before.
@@jayfraxteaI wish you then luck in learning! :)
@@HappyLifeAbroad, U2!
And plz continue posting about common day topics in Tallinn, like renting a flat.
@@jayfraxtea Okay :) Thank you!
I like watching videos where someone who is not estonian tries to pronounce words. But you pronounced the word "buss" as "püss"
"Buss" means bus, but "püss" means gun.
yes, you did butcher jäääär completely, i legit laughed
The principle of the Estonian case system is easy to comprehend for a native Finnish speaker familiar to the southwestern dialects of finnish in which the word endings are shortened like in estonian if compared with standard written finnish. (Maybe due to some ancient migration from Estonia to southwesterbn finland or something like that,) So for example the word ranta (beach) is in Finnish: ranta - rannat, rannan - rantojen, rantaa - rantoja. So it is easy to learn just how many letters you drop from the ending of the finnish language word. Or if not directly then the estonian word will at least resemble some finnish dialect form. But because written or officially spoken finnish was designed quite conservative in the 19th century during the national awakening, the informal spoken finnish uses very much the shorter forms with letters dropped of from the end of the words. So for example in estonian I = ma, you = sa while in written standard finnish (and some dialects) I = minä and you = sinä but in informal spoken finnish there may be I =mä, you = sä.
As native Estonian speaker it’s pretty easy for me until i go to Estonian class at school
Hehe. I bet this is the case for many people, not only for Estonians
Jäääär u spell it more like spearated, like jää-äär and the word süüa u spell sü-ia :)) that pretty cool tho
Yes, thank you :) Now I know it. At the end, making this video was beneficial for me too cause people are giving me feedback and corrections.
I am russian and born in Estonia. I know estonian language, but I agree grammatics are hard as hell
If you were born in Estonia you should be fluent in Estonian. 📚
i know you probably alrady know this, but i wanted to mention how when you said ''Buss'', you said ''Büiss'' but it is pronounced ''buiss''
i read your video with very interest. I like Estonia and i want to come back in next spring (i like your video "rent"). You are my estonian guide!!!
But, now, where do you live? In Estonia or Finland.
And, please, tell me a little answer. How is in summer with mosquitoes in Estonia?
Many years ago i was in june in Finalnd, near Rovaniemi. Was terrible and people walked with protection anti mosquitoes.
Thanks for your answer
Thanks for sharing your findings !
Happy to help :)
great
Thanks
"Ma söön maasikat" is actually a singular form, so you're eating just one strawberry
"Ma söön maasikaid" is plurar form, then you eat more than one
Those pop-up noises were pretty harsh. but a nice explanation and very informative video. Thank you.
Написать слово можно, но произнести правильно сложнее. И это про автобус. Одно из! Слышу звон, но не знаю где он. Главное канал создать.
I have noticed how basically every foreigner that learns estonian gets the pitch wrong with many words that contain L's and M's. Sadly for you, what makes it even harder to learn this is that, the difference in pitch is not represented in written language. You already have to struggle with learning to pronounce certain vowels.
Anyway, i figured i could borrow something from spanish language to give you a example you could lean on. Namely its letters n/ñ. ñ is with much higher pitch than regular n. Now imagine the same system in estonian. In adition to just N, the same rule also applies to letter L! Now, i know in reality, the spanish ñ is pronounced more as ni or nj but, pay no attention to that and listen to the pitch of an ñ compared to normal n!
Couple of words for demonstration, imagine letter L also cointains tilde as i cant write it as it does not exist:
Palk (no tilde normal L) - wage Paññ - frying pan
Palk (L with tilde) - log Vaññ - bath
Palju (tilde) - many
Kalju (tilde) - cliff
Anyway, there are many words going around the same way but i cant recall all of them on the top of my head. I hope you atleast understood what i was trying to explain here. Getting the pitch wrong in those words is a dead giveaway that you are not a native speaker.
This was interesting. Are you in fact describing palatalisation here? Would you say the "tt" in the male name Ott also has this type of pronunciation? I've watched a fair bit of world rally championships, and I've noticed the pronunciation of Ott Tänak's name has something going on that I, as a Finn, would not have been able to get from the spelling alone. I'm speculating that the "tt" is palatalised, which is not a thing in Finnish (at least not in my dialect) so I struggle to do it. I never knew about palatalisation in Estonian before, but that would explain one of those things that give Estonian its unique sound compared to Finnish. I have also heard Estonians joke about the Finnish pronunciation of 's', and I'm wondering if that is referring to the inability of Finns to pronounce the palatalised 's' in Estonian. :)
@@ihanba Think you are on to something here. That being said, im not an expert to explain it in great detail.
The way i understand Finnish though, lets just say we do things very differently when it comes to double consonants!
In estonian double t's or k's are considered to be very strong and slightly different in pitch compared to single t's or k's. Tongue position is slightly different. Finns however pronounce their double consonants often as we do single consonants.
Thank you
Tubli!
Aitäh :)
Says it's hard says only three months. Easyest language at all
Hola que tal?;
Los mejores y más cordiales Saludos desde puente piedra, lima, Perú, ojalá que puedan venir en algún momento a mi país y que disfruten mucho de todo por aquí, con la familia y los amigos,
felicidades por sus vídeos...
Nice presentati⭕️n.
Thank you
jäääär you pronounce as two different words like Jää äär ( ice edge)
W is not pronounced in vowel! Voul
it is really hard way to teach language
Estonian Ä,ä = /æ/, like english word "bad" sounds /bæd/ or /bæ:d/. Estonian word "jäääär" /jæ:`æ:r/
.
Thanks alot so useful and also the sound of nature at the background was really beautiful and amazing 😍
Nice video 👍😊
Thank you :)
@@HappyLifeAbroad все отлично, я слежу за тобой.
Тоже из кз. Very interesting video
kass, haha :)
"No sex and no future" 🤣
Actually, there is a sentence order structure. I sometimes tend to end my sentences with verbs. So during high school and the end of middle school, we had to write a lot of essays and my teacher basically marked me down in almost every other sentence for incorrect sentence structure. A similar thing happened when I was writing my bachelor's and master's thesis. It wasn't as bad, but still. Even though the reader could understand what I wrote.
Thank you, very interesting video for me as an Estonian to watch🥰. Jäääär is like Jää = Ice + edge = äär . As previously mentioned, honey cake = mee+kook and wooden table = puu+laud . It's true that, as an Estonian, I don't really think about how or from what words are inflected or what the endings are. You explained everything very nicely. I myself could not explain Estonian grammar to a foreigner, to be honest. 😅
Thanks for the informative video.
I'm Estonian and I remembered the funny saying that you have to try to say fast:"Eminemi esimene esinemine". :D
And a saying that is the same from the beginning to the end and the other way:"aias sadas saia"
14:27 in Russian not have word "Kas". That mind order is differnd of words when asking. " on" is never in Estonian language last word and conjuction word have not never first word of sentens.
funny fact is we have two languages we can speak first is clean estonia and other is wõro language if youd travel to võru city there people speak it differently
like something sannas om lämmi
Adding extra sound after "a" in word kass. I don't think I do this and I haven't observed others do this.
Tere hommikust sulle kaa!
Tervist :)
It's much like Lithuanian, a mash-up of old school agglutinative plus Latin / German "order", and lots of influence from neighbouring languages.
Are you serious mate? 😅
idu -eo = germ / Wich ? germs .
07:47 Not süüa we wright but pronunace süüja " suuya " J = Y on english pronuance
I love that you are polyglot which so cute.
Haha thanks, but I struggle with all the languages I am trying to learn now, besides the ones I already speak fluently.
Can someone trantslate this...
Tere päevast!kuidas sull läheb
sul*
so you are just an tibla?
Small mistake in the video :P : Ma söön maasikat- I eat strawberry not Strawberries (Maasikaid) :)
Thanks for the great video. I just came back from a trip to Tallinn, and so much of what you said makes total sense in hindsight. I'm thinking about learning Estonian as a native English speaker (USA). I studied French in high school, Russian at the university level, and German via a language app for my phone. But Estonian seems particularly intimidating. So thanks for the positive vibes!!!
University of Washington in Seattle has Estonian in Scand and Baltic program.
Actually, "jäääär" is not a correct way to write this word. Correct way to write it is "jää-äär". If combining of words gives you more than two same letters in sequence, a hyphen is used to separate them. Never use three or more same letters in a row without it. For example "uusaasta öö", but "vana-aasta õhtu".
Thank you Marek for the correction!
Actually both are correct. The hyphen between three same letters or more is to make reading it easier. Just like when there are many words written together then you're also allowed to separate them with a hyphen.
@@Gaming4Justice Turns out, you are right. As we see, rules are weakening and weakening...
@@marekkusmin6674 I've seen a similar weakening in Russian and French
Usually estonians use jää ots or jää lõpp
As a Estonian I can confirm that nobody in their daily life actually uses the word jäääär (actually right way to write it would be jää-äär). It's basically made up word, which means "ice edge". Wtf even is ice edge? 🤔😀 So feel free to forget this word.
Otherwise very nice video. ❤️
According to the most recent grammatical rules jäääär is correct.
@@Martin-wx8gd jää-äär is more correct